April 2025 Discussion/Obs

[LibertyBell]

3 hours ago, gravitylover said:

I've given up trying to explain because I'm tired of LB arguing there's no drought. Today's 1 inch is being sucked up by plants before it has a chance to soak in, it's still dry 6" down here too. Anyway... I'm going to set up a soaker hose on a timer for the garden. I have way too much of ME invested in it to let it wither when I go to Cape Cod for July 4th week. 

it's officially nowhere close to a drought, we're in dry conditions but no drought.  A little east of here it's not even that.

It's a drought when we see yellow/brown dried up grass (my unofficial definition)

 

[nycwinter]

i was lying in bed listening to cousin brucie weekend rock and roll party which i do every saturday night 6-10 pm great hearing song of yesteryear i must have fallen asleep and missed any thunderstorms...

[bluewave]

Here come the wind gusts over 35 mph again to dry things out after the rain.

https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/plotting/auto/?_wait=no&q=140&network=NY_ASOS&station=ISP&syear=1900&sday=0101&eday=0426&varname=avg_wind_gust&w=none&thres=1&year=2025&_r=t&dpi=100&_fmt=png

 

 

 

Kennedy Intl   PTCLDY    50  33  52 NW26G35   

[nycwinter]

cold enough to wear a winter coat hat hoodie and gloves if i go out early hmm..

[bluewave]

9 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

it's officially nowhere close to a drought, we're in dry conditions but no drought.  A little east of here it's not even that.

It's a drought when we see yellow/brown dried up grass (my unofficial definition)

 

It’s more pronounced to our SW as they are down more than 10 inches since last summer. 
 

 

[SACRUS]

 

 50 / 33 Cooler , dry and windy.   The month finishes warm Mon - W3d to lock in an above normal month for a majority.   Overall dry week outside showers/storms on Thu night / Fri.  Trough / perhaps cutoff moves into the northeast between 5th - 10th as ridge moves into upper plain and NA.   

 

https://cdn.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES19/ABI/SECTOR/eus/02/GOES19-EUS-02-1000x1000.gif 

[SACRUS]

 

Records:

Highs:

EWR: 94 (1990)
NYC: 92 (1915)
LGA: 89 (1990)
JFK: 77 (1949)


Lows:

EWR: 33 (1933)
NYC: 36 (1932)
LGA: 38 (1946)
JFK: 34 (1967)

Historical:
 

1898: The first Weather Bureau kite was launched in Topeka, Kansas to report daily, early morning, atmospheric observations. By year's end, 16 additional launch sites would be in operation. 

1899 - A tornado struck Kirksville, MO, killing 34 persons and destroying 300 buildings. (David Ludlum)

 

1912: The April 27-28, 1912 outbreak was the climax of a wild, week-long period of severe weather that occurred in Oklahoma. Strong to violent tornadoes struck portions of central and north-central Oklahoma on April 20, 1912. Also, a violent tornado hit Ponca City, OK on April 25, 1912. From the 27 through the 28th, 16 tornadoes rated F2 or greater touched down in the state with 6 of them rated F4. About 40 people were killed, and the storms injured 120 people. 

1931 - The temperature at Pahala, located on the main island of Hawaii, soared to 100 degrees to establish a state record. (The Weather Channel)

1931: The temperature at Pahala, located on the main island of Hawaii, soared to 100 degrees to establish a state record.

1942 - A destructive tornado swept across Rogers County and Mayes County in Oklahoma. The tornado struck the town of Pryor killing 52 persons and causing two million dollars damage. (David Ludlum)

1987 - Forty-two cities in the western and south central U.S. reported record high temperatures for the date. The afternoon high of 87 degrees at Olympia WA was an April record, and highs of 92 degrees at Boise ID, 95 degrees at Monroe LA, and 96 degrees at Sacramento CA tied April records. (The National Weather Summary) More than 300 daily temperature records fell by the wayside during a two week long heat wave across thirty-four states in the southern and western U.S. Thirteen cities established records for the month of April. (Sandra and TI Richard Sanders - 1987)

1988 - Mount Washington NH reported seven feet of snow in ten days, pushing their snowfall total for the month past the previous record of 89.3 inches set in 1975. (The National Weather Summary)

1989 - Thunderstorms produced severe weather from the Lower and Middle Mississippi Valley to Virginia and the Carolinas. Hail up to four and a half inches in diameter caused five million dollars damage around Omaha NE. Thunderstorms spawned eleven tornadoes, and there were 160 other reports of large hail and damaging winds. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)

1990 - Thunderstorms produced severe weather in eastern Texas and the Lower Mississippi Valley. Severe thunderstorms spawned thirteen tornadoes in Texas and twelve in Louisiana. A tornado southwest of Coolidge TX injured eight persons and caused more than five million dollars damage. There were also eighty-five reports of large hail and damaging winds, with baseball size hail reported at Mexia TX and Shreveport LA. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data) Forty-three cities in the eastern U.S. reported record high temperatures for the date. Records highs included 94 degrees at Charleston WV, 95 degrees at Baltimore MD and96 degrees at Richmond VA. (The National Weather Summary)

 

2003: For only the 11th time since records began in 1871, hail was observed in Key West Florida. A severe thunderstorm produced hail to 1.75 inches in diameter which easily broke the previous record of a half an inch in diameter which was set on May 10, 1961.

2011 - An estimated 305 tornados between the 27th and 28th sets a record for the largest outbreak ever recorded, including two EF-5s, four EF-4s and 21 EF-3s. Arkansas through Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, southern Tennessee, Virginia to Pennsylvania and New York were all affected. An estimated 300 died including 210 in Alabama alone. This brought the April total past 600, the most in any month in recorded US weather history.

 

[SACRUS]

 

 

Next week with most of this forecast Fri now.  With trough backing in and cutting off we'll see if the period 5/5  - 5/12 is trends more unsettled 

 

[gravitylover]

9 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

it's officially nowhere close to a drought, we're in dry conditions but no drought.  A little east of here it's not even that.

It's a drought when we see yellow/brown dried up grass (my unofficial definition)

 

So your unofficial definition is more important than reality and you continue to defend it? That's pretty arrogant. Go 6-8" down and the soil is holding less than 30% of the moisture it should be and as that gets sucked dry by all the foliage doing it's thing everything dries out from the bottom up if it doesn't rain every few days. It's going to look green but it's constant stress on those plants. It's at least 8-9" down since September and only had about 30% of the normal winter precip. My unofficial definition of drought apparently syncs up with that of NOAA because their map shows D1.

[SACRUS]

 

Euro not updating on PennState Ewall the last month but it is similar to the Canadian trough backs in and cuts off into the Northeast next weekend.

 

[LongBeachSurfFreak]

4 minutes ago, gravitylover said:

So your unofficial definition is more important than reality and you continue to defend it? That's pretty arrogant. Go 6-8" down and the soil is holding less than 30% of the moisture it should be and as that gets sucked dry by all the foliage doing it's thing everything dries out from the bottom up if it doesn't rain every few days. It's going to look green but it's constant stress on those plants. It's at least 8-9" down since September and only had about 30% of the normal winter precip. My unofficial definition of drought apparently syncs up with that of NOAA because their map shows D1.

He says allot of ridiculous stuff as you’re aware. His main motivation is allergy’s so anything that potentially reduces pollen is a good thing. I call a spade a spade.

The reality is, just like you said, soil moisture in spring should be high. Mud season as they say in NE. Plants are pulling tons of moisture for the leaf out. 
 

I guess drought is a subjective thing. it’s allot more then just reservoir numbers. If it were pre Industrial Revolution and the vast majority of us were farmers the past year would be remembered as having been a drought. 

[Brian5671]

Quite the T-storm here last evening-dropped another .40 or so so about an inch on the day

[Sundog]

2 hours ago, bluewave said:

Here come the wind gusts over 35 mph again to dry things out after the rain.

https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/plotting/auto/?_wait=no&q=140&network=NY_ASOS&station=ISP&syear=1900&sday=0101&eday=0426&varname=avg_wind_gust&w=none&thres=1&year=2025&_r=t&dpi=100&_fmt=png

 

 

 

Kennedy Intl   PTCLDY    50  33  52 NW26G35   

I hope we get steady breezes in the summer when we need them most. I can't stand that still, ultra humid, stagnant heat in summer that we get so much of. When I'm begging for even a breath of wind it's nowhere to be found. 

[Sundog]

50 minutes ago, gravitylover said:

So your unofficial definition is more important than reality and you continue to defend it? That's pretty arrogant. Go 6-8" down and the soil is holding less than 30% of the moisture it should be and as that gets sucked dry by all the foliage doing it's thing everything dries out from the bottom up if it doesn't rain every few days. It's going to look green but it's constant stress on those plants. It's at least 8-9" down since September and only had about 30% of the normal winter precip. My unofficial definition of drought apparently syncs up with that of NOAA because their map shows D1.

 

Are we using the latest averages for what normal precip is? We are up like 7 to 8 inches compared to 30 or 40 years ago I believe. 

So if the trees were doing just fine with 40 inches of rain, why do we need to maintain our current 50 inches of rain for them to do well?

I think precip distribution is more important than annual totals, because the same trees are still out there from when they were only getting 40 inches and they did just fine. 

 

[lee59]

Just had a gust to 34mph here.

[IrishRob17]

1 hour ago, gravitylover said:

only had about 30% of the normal winter precip. 

Was that a typo, your winter precipitation was down 70%? That’s quite the difference from up here. As of the start of this month my water year (starts Oct 1) was only 2” down from the KMGJ long term average, and down 4” from my own personal records over the last 20 years. 

[Poker2015]

Not even abnormally dry by me. My yard is swampy a week after it rains, good thing I mowed on friday.

[bluewave]

1 hour ago, Sundog said:

 

Are we using the latest averages for what normal precip is? We are up like 7 to 8 inches compared to 30 or 40 years ago I believe. 

So if the trees were doing just fine with 40 inches of rain, why do we need to maintain our current 50 inches of rain for them to do well?

I think precip distribution is more important than annual totals, because the same trees are still out there from when they were only getting 40 inches and they did just fine. 

 

We were in and out of drought quite a bit prior to the precipitation increase since 2003. So those lower totals didn’t really cut it. The good news is that the NYC hasn’t had a drought emergency since then. The dry pattern since last summer has mostly been focused to the S and W of NYC. So the reservoirs to the north are fine. But NJ had had reservoir issues. These strong winds dry things out more as we have seen with the increased brush fires in recent months. 

[steve392]

It's amazing how plants respond to rain vs hose water.  All my perennial's were looking incredible yesterday after the rains.

[FPizz]

On 4/25/2025 at 10:18 AM, LongBeachSurfFreak said:

Green Giant Arb is a pretty hardy plant. Hard to pin down exactly what killed it. The Butterfly bushes are fine, just remove the dead wood and you should get most of it back this season. Essentially a weed.

Lost 2 established broomstick plants as well that were like 6' high and 5' wide.  They were about 5 years old.  

[gravitylover]

1 hour ago, IrishRob17 said:

Was that a typo, your winter precipitation was down 70%? That’s quite the difference from up here. As of the start of this month my water year (starts Oct 1) was only 2” down from the KMGJ long term average, and down 4” from my own personal records over the last 20 years. 

Meant to say less than 70% so down 30. I looked recently and Q1 was down about 4", so not met winter but close. You also got quite a bit more frozen precip than I did.

[LibertyBell]

2 hours ago, gravitylover said:

So your unofficial definition is more important than reality and you continue to defend it? That's pretty arrogant. Go 6-8" down and the soil is holding less than 30% of the moisture it should be and as that gets sucked dry by all the foliage doing it's thing everything dries out from the bottom up if it doesn't rain every few days. It's going to look green but it's constant stress on those plants. It's at least 8-9" down since September and only had about 30% of the normal winter precip. My unofficial definition of drought apparently syncs up with that of NOAA because their map shows D1.

D1 is *dry* not a drought.  No reason to get all frantic about it.  It's not considered a drought by NOAA or by anyone else for that matter.

Sorry I meant D0 not D1.  I confused the two.  We have D0 in NYC and Western Long Island which is just dry not any kind of drought.  In Suffolk County it's D nothing (not even dry.)

You people are as spoiled by the excessive rainfalls of the last 20 years as the people are who were spoiled by the excessive snowfalls of the early 2000s.

How did you live through the 80s and 90s?  We don't live in a tropical or subtropical rainforest, it's not supposed to rain like that here.  We're not supposed to regularly get 2 inch plus rainfalls any more than we're supposed to get 20 inch plus snowfalls.

Our climate is -NOT- supposed to be like that!  And we had 0.5-1.00 inches of rain with this storm and some over 1 inch, which was right on target with predictions.  NYC had 0.80 and Islip had 0.50 and the lower Hudson Valley had up to 1.50.  

 

[LibertyBell]

26 minutes ago, bluewave said:

We were in and out of drought quite a bit prior to the precipitation increase since 2003. So those lower totals didn’t really cut it. The good news is that the NYC hasn’t had a drought emergency since then. The dry pattern since last summer has mostly been focused to the S and W of NYC. So the reservoirs to the north are fine. But NJ had had reservoir issues. These strong winds dry things out more as we have seen with the increased brush fires in recent months. 

It's much better to have slight reservoir issues than having rivers overflowing their banks every year.

Overflowing rivers causes MUCH more damage.

[LibertyBell]

19 minutes ago, gravitylover said:

Meant to say less than 70% so down 30. I looked recently and Q1 was down about 4", so not met winter but close. You also got quite a bit more frozen precip than I did.

and again D1 is NOT a *drought*

sorry I meant D0 not D1.  I confused the two.  We have D0 in NYC and Western Long Island which is just dry not any kind of drought.  In Suffolk County it's D nothing (not even dry.)

 

[LibertyBell]

28 minutes ago, bluewave said:

We were in and out of drought quite a bit prior to the precipitation increase since 2003. So those lower totals didn’t really cut it. The good news is that the NYC hasn’t had a drought emergency since then. The dry pattern since last summer has mostly been focused to the S and W of NYC. So the reservoirs to the north are fine. But NJ had had reservoir issues. These strong winds dry things out more as we have seen with the increased brush fires in recent months. 

40 inches of rain per year are just fine, we don't live in a rain forest.

If some foliage can't *cut* it, it needs to go.

 

[LibertyBell]

1 hour ago, Poker2015 said:

Not even abnormally dry by me. My yard is swampy a week after it rains, good thing I mowed on friday.

we don't have any kind of drought here.

[LibertyBell]

2 hours ago, Sundog said:

I hope we get steady breezes in the summer when we need them most. I can't stand that still, ultra humid, stagnant heat in summer that we get so much of. When I'm begging for even a breath of wind it's nowhere to be found. 

That's why I love those dry downsloping W to NW winds!

[MANDA]

Two day total here was .60".  Not great but better than nothing.  Windy again with gusts into the mid 30's.

[LibertyBell]

2 hours ago, LongBeachSurfFreak said:

He says allot of ridiculous stuff as you’re aware. His main motivation is allergy’s so anything that potentially reduces pollen is a good thing. I call a spade a spade.

The reality is, just like you said, soil moisture in spring should be high. Mud season as they say in NE. Plants are pulling tons of moisture for the leaf out. 
 

I guess drought is a subjective thing. it’s allot more then just reservoir numbers. If it were pre Industrial Revolution and the vast majority of us were farmers the past year would be remembered as having been a drought. 

We had a drought last fall because of 0 rainfall from October through the first half of November.  But the rainfall has been normal to above since then and our reservoirs are up around 95%

I've never seen so many people whine for rainfall, it reminds me of the snowfall weenies who whine for 20 inch snowfall events.  Our climate isn't supposed to be that wet and we're doing just fine.  I haven't even watered anything yet.

 

[steve392]

Anyone have the rainfall totals for the area?  I can never get the links when searching